Gwydion Pendderwen

PaganFM! 051712

Musical selections:
Velvet Hammer, We Do Not Die,  The Best of Pagan Song
Heather Alexander, The Witch of Westmereland, A Gypsy’s Home
Gaia Consort, Oracle, Vitus Dance
Annwn, The Trees They Do Grow High, Come Away to the Hills
Gwydion Pendderwen, We Won’t Wait Any Longer, The Faerie Shaman
Omnia, Jabberwocky, Wolf Love
Jaiya, The Green Man, Beltane
Amanda Komisarek, Herbs for Life
Lisa Thiel, Sacred Ancestors Chant, Invocation of the Graces
Laura Powers, Dance ’till the Rain Begins, Legends of the Goddess III
Wendy Rule, Under the Willow, World Between Worlds
The Reverend Rat, At the Standing Stones, Imbolc and Ice
Donna Summer, Last Dance, On the Radio

PaganFM! Prayer List Priscilla, Athostan, Ian, Greg, Joseph and Tim

We started the show off with Donna Summer’s Last Dance. Donna passed on today at age 63, after a struggle with cancer. I only hope that this last dance leaves her singing and dancing in the Summerlands.

A hat tip to Jason over at the Wild hunt for this article, Slate.com this week, in the Dear Prudence video by Emily Yoffe tackled the question of a Christian woman who had married an atheist, that has since decided to embrace Wicca. The woman described her initial reservations of marrying an Atheist, but she was in love – she describes her husband as sweet, attentive and loving. He would occasionally accompany his wife to church. She said the first four years of the marriage were bliss. But then Kent, her husband began to study Wicca, and now she has problem with his beliefs.

In the video, Emily does the face we all know so well when she says the word “Wiccan” – it’s that “ooo – this is a spooky word” sort of look. The video, as the woman describes her relationship is filled with images of goad-blood and parodies of religions that people don’t understand. Really, it looks like a modern version of bits from the 1922 silent film Haxan – or as it’s known today, Witchcraft through the ages.

Anyway, the distressed wife goes through her tale of woe – a Christian married to a Wiccan. But then comes the problem. Prudence decides to give advice, which it seems she’s not entirely qualified to give. While I understand that her videos need some entertainment value, it’s poor form to do so at the expense of someone’s legitimate belief system. Speaking of “Eye of Newt” in relationship to Wicca makes as much sense as speaking of cannibalism when discussing Christian communion. You don’t bring healing to a relationship by belittling the religious choices of one of the partners.

I would have appreciated it more if Emily had asked this wife some rather pointed questions – why is it that Wicca is more threatening to her than is Atheism? Is a husband who believes in a different religion than you more difficult than a husband that thinks you still believe in fairy tales? If you were willing to disobey your religion and become unequally yoked with an unbeliever, why are you suddenly worried about a husband who is simply a different brand of … unbeliever?

Jason, in his article at The Wild Hunt blog points out some very pertinent facts. The simple truth is that Pagans divorced from Christians have a much more difficult time retaining custody of their children. There is still a tacit assumption that Pagans are somehow Satanists or evil, or, at the very least, really weird people. Pagans have been prohibited from allowing their children to come to their religious services, while the opposite is rarely true for the Christian parents. In short, the view of Pagans by society still influences greatly what will happen to them in divorce proceedings. This “advice” by Prudence, does nothing to mitigate the misconceptions – rather, it reinforces them.

PaganFM! Almanac

Moon void of course data provided courtesy of www.drstandley.com

Today is May 16, 2011. It’s the 138^th day of he year.

The waning moon is currently in Aries, and will go void just as we’re winding down the show, at 11:59 pm, tonight. It will enter Taurus, tomorrow afternoon at 12:10 pm.

We’ll have a New Moon on Sunday, that will go void at 1:00 pm, and which will enter Gemini on Monday, May 21 at 1:11 am.

It was either on May 21 or 22 that Gwydion Pendderwen was born. Gwydion was a student of Victor Anderson and a high priest in the Feri Tradition. Gwydion felt himself to be a Druid and spent a great deal of time in seclusion. With a great love of trees, he chose his last name to be Pendderwen, meaning “Leader of Oaks”. Gwydion was an actor and a musician, recording some of the first modern Pagan music. He died in an automobile accident in 1982 at the age of 36.

And on Wednesday, May 23, the moon will be void at 1:33 am, and enters Cancer at 1:30 pm.

Practical Pagan

So this week saw a few different discussions in a few different venues. On one side, was an individual who posted a video on our PaganFM! Page. He’s a Christian evangelist – and maybe he was thinking that his talks might save some of us. I can’t blame him at all for that – asking him not to try to share his faith would be akin to asking a bird not to fly. Sure, we’ve got Penguins and a few other flightless birds, but for the most part, birds fly.

In another venu, someone suggested that as a Pagan, I have a baseless faith. That discussion turned even more interesting when he suggested that I believe, because I’m a Wiccan, in the Wiccan rule “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law”. Of course I pointed out that Thelema is not Wicca, and that he did miss the second part of that particular passage, which somewhat tightens that meaning up a bit. I also pointed out that suggesting that someone is Wiccan because they claim to be Pagan is a lot like suggesting someone is a Mormon because they happen to be Christian. There are conclusions that follow, and there are conclusions that do not follow. This man’s conclusions were almost all of the later category.

In any case, I was about due to give a Paganism 101 talk again, and while a few weeks ago I had a different topic in mind, I’m thinking right now that it might be worthwhile to talk a little bit about how we can talk, specifically to Christians, about what it means to be Pagan.

One of the first hurdles we need to get over is a really simple question, with a not-so-simple answer. That is, what does it mean to be a Pagan? When I tell people that I’m a Pagan, I’m met with a number of different responses ranging from “So you don’t believe in God?” to “You’re an atheist?” to “You believe in Satan?” Many people have a great many ideas as to what it means to be a Pagan – even among Pagans there can be some disagreement. But then again, among Christians, there is absolutely no unanimity as to what it means to be a Christian – so we’re not at all alone. In any case, the three responses above will represent most of the misconceptions that Christians have about what it means to be a Pagan. They might be somewhat nuanced – they might know that Wiccans are Pagan, but believe that Wiccans are witches and witches worship the Devil. But really, the three comments above will define, in some way, almost all of the Christian misconceptions regarding Paganism.

But we’re still left with the question “What does it mean to be Pagan?” Let’s look at that first.

My own definition, and this is by no means the authoritative definition – is simple. To me, a Pagan is any person who believes in the Deities of nature. All the rest of it is trappings or adornment. If you worship the Gods and Goddesses of nature, you’re a Pagan. If you worship the God of the Sun, the Goddess of the moon, if you revere Mother Earth as deity, you’re a Pagan. Pagans revere the Earth as sacred because it is imbued with the life, the divinity of the Mother. All is sacred, and we cannot separate the divine from the physical or the mundane.

Christianity is quite different. The Creator is separate from the created. In Christianity, the Earth is not sacred – it is a created object, here for our use. Christians speak of Jesus dwelling in our hearts, but Jesus, and God and the Holy Spirit are still separate. God may be omnipresent, but God is still separate. And I really find this idea of separateness a very curious aspect of Christianity. Jesus prayed to the Father “I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.” It really seems to me that in these verses from the Gospel of John, that Christianity should know something about seeing the Divine in other people. How can a person be “in God”, yet a Christian not see the Divinity of God in or through that other person?

In Luke, someone told Jesus to silence his disciples. Jesus replied “if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out”. It seems that Jesus saw life in the Earth just as well as any Pagan would. I often wonder how Christians who value the words of Christ can look upon the Earth, which Christ himself said could rise up singing, as just an object to be used.

In any case, the curious thing is that much what defines my belief as a Pagan is also in the Bible – the stones themselves, nature, can speak. We are, however we would like to separate ourselves, one people. But most Christians don’t recognize these things – even though it’s contained in their scripture.

But much of what Christians believe came to them from far earlier sources. Jesus’ death on the cross – the sacrificed King, is a common theme among Pagan history. Jesus’ resurrection, a virgin birth – all of these things predate Christianity. And the early Christian church was aware of this. They suggested that it was certainly a devious, demonic plot for only the Devil, they said, could come up with a couterfeit prior to the original.

James Frazer, in his book, The Golden Bough, goes through great effort to demonstrate how this sacrificed and risen God is not unique to Christianity. And while some of his work may have been criticized, I’ve not found anyone yet to refute that basic part of his argument – at least not effectively.

In any case, let’s look at the charges that are often leveled against Pagans by Christians and see how the misconceptions speak as much about their faith, as they do to ours.

Charge #1 and Charge #2- “So you don’t believe in God”, So you’re an Atheist. These charges are particularly interesting. It’s very curious in a historical context because Atheism was a charge that was once, after a fashion, leveled against Christians. You see, in the early days of the Church, when Christians were persecuted by Pagans – and yes folks, Pagans were at one time the persecutor – the charge wasn’t that they believed in the Christian God. The Pagan Romans had no problem with Christians believing in their God. The problem was that Christians denied the Gods of Rome. In essence, in denying the Gods of Rome, this new cult, were Atheists.

But Pagans do worship, we do honor the Gods and Goddesses. There are even Christo-Pagans – those who honor Christ and the Christian God in a Pagan fashion. While Christo-Pagans are often looked down upon by other Pagans, they are still there. The charge that Pagans “don’t believe in God” is simply false – we do believe in God – we believe in many Gods and / or Goddesses. What is different is our beliefs regarding the nature of deity. Where to Christians, God is transcendent – out there, to Pagans, Deity is immanent – here, there, and everywhere as the song goes.

The third charge is a little different. “So you worship Satan” speaks volumes about the Christian making that charge. Many Christians might see a statue of the Horned God, and believe that to be Satan. They’ll see the Pentacle and recognize it as a sign of the Devil. How did this come to be?

It’s worth noting that the Christian Satan was NOT the horned God until after Christians encountered Pagans in Western Europe. Prior to that, Lucifer was known as a beautiful angel. He was the angel of Light, and his name was synonymous with light. So much so, in fact, that the chemical that is responsible for bioluminescence is called luciferase. Lucifer was known as the Morning Star, which was Venus when seen in the morning. It’s interesting also that Christianity, while eschewing polytheism, associates even their Devil with a celestial object, just as Pagans had done before – but that’s another story.

In any case, the Devil was not known as a horned God or a hideous creature until they met with the Celtic Pagans who worshiped a horned God. Christians, when they were proselytizing in Western Europe, had, by that time, a powerful empire behind them. And as the empire expanded, so did the Christian church. In Western Europe, they met the Celts, and the Gods of the Celts were Gods of nature. The Stag, the Horned God, the Green man – the Gods of the Celts were very different than the Christian God, and Christians decided that whatever the Gods of these Pagans looked like, that’s the Devil.

At this point though, Pagans were not using the Pentacle as a symbol. In fact, the Pentagram was once even used by Christians to represent the five wounds of Christ – and even today you’ll see Christians find inspiration in the apple cut in half to show the 5-pointed star, or a sand-dollar which has a 5-pointed star at its center.

The actual origin of the Pentagram comes from Mesopotamian writings as far back as 3,000 BC. Pythagoras used the Pentagram in his sacred geometry. One of the great secrets was the construction of a Pentagram using only a compass and a straight-edge. But the idea of the Pentagram as a Satanic symbol probably stems from its use in mystery sects such as the Masons. Many people have this idea that something which is secret must be sinister. The reality is far less entertaining.

I think that the biggest disagreement between Christianity and Paganism comes from a very fundamental belief of Christians today – they believe that there is only one God, and that all others are false Gods – or worse, that they are some aspect of Satan. Pagans are typically open to the idea of many Gods – and that no human can fully comprehend Deity.

Christians today believe that all that we need to know about God can fit between the covers of a single book. And they believe that the book that they have is all that God wants humanity to know about him. Pagans recognize that no book can possibly contain even the tiniest bit of the vastness of Deity. Many believe it is folly to even try or to begin. That might be one reason why the Druids had such disdain for writing of things of a spiritual nature. If a thing was worth knowing, it was worth experiencing, it was worth remembering, and we didn’t debase it by putting it on paper.

One of the problems I have with many Christians is their fear. While their scripture claims that they should walk in faith, that they should not be afraid, many have a tremendous fear for anything which is different, which challenges their views. Most mature Pagans, on the other hand welcome challenge – it gives us an opportunity to learn, to grow, to understand even more about the vastness of reality. We don’t equate silence or mystery with something to be feared.

Pagans have a vastly different view of sex and sexuality than do Christians. I’m not so sure where Christians today get their fear of sex – it’s certainly not explicit in the Bible. In the Bible, there were many different relationships – there were men with many wives, and men with only one wife. There are relationships such as that between David and Jonathan which suggest something much stronger than mere friendship – though to be fair, the Bible is silent as to whether or not that relationship was sexual. The Bible also suggested that a conquering army could take the women of that country to be their own wives – something we, today, would consider rape. It suggests that if the husband of a woman died prior to her having a baby, that others were duty-bound to see to it that she did have a baby. In short, the sexuality and relationships of Biblical times are very different from how Christians, claiming Biblical support for their positions, view relationships today.

In Paganism, we have a very different view of relationships and sexuality. Typically, we don’t fear homosexuality, heterosexuality or bisexuality. Some of us draw the line at polyamory, others do not. I think that Christianity has been influenced a great deal by asceticism and austerity. Where in the early Christian church and in a number of Pagan faiths, asceticism was practiced as a spiritual exercise, and not as a rejection or an indictment of sensual pleasure, as the Christian church matured, the sensual became more and more rejected as something evil or to be avoided. The spiritual exercise of the ascetic as a personal means to come closer to God became something imposed on all believers. And in so doing, in becoming an imposed discipline, it seems to have lost much of its meaning. Perhaps a good deal of this comes from Paul, who as a Roman soldier, lived a life of strict discipline. But Christ, certainly, never said that life was not to be enjoyed. The Book of Genesis never said “Be fruitful and multiply – but don’t enjoy it too much”!

There is certainly room for ascetic or austere practices among Pagans – and I have no doubt that many practice these things to come closer to deity. The difference is that as Pagans, we view all of our lifestyles, so long as they don’t bring harm to others, as valid. We know that we can come closer to deity while enjoying the sex act with our lover, and we can come closer to Deity sitting alone on the top of a mountain in the bright sunshine. Neither is less valid.

Quite honestly, I think that we, as modern Pagans, are in a unique position to help educate Christians of today – by understanding Christian as well as Pagan history, we can see the similarities. We can see the Pagan roots of modern Christianity. We know the stories of Attis and Dionysus and Osiris and so many others. We understand the resurrection, we know the true meaning of Christmas, and where Easter really comes from. But we don’t need to use these things as hammers – we can respectfully listen to their story, and then remark – oh, that’s just like our God …

I doubt that there will be a day when Pagans fully embrace Christianity or when Christians embrace Paganism. And neither of these is my wish. But it’s nice to think that we can learn about each other’s faith without becoming fearful. Maybe then, Pagans won’t worry about a return of the burning times, and Christians could understand that we don’t begrudge them their beliefs so long as we’re permitted to practice ours. Wouldn’t that be a nice world?

Damh the Bard

Musical selections:
Damh the Bard, Land, Sea and Sky, The Cauldron Born
Heartbeat, Heartbeat of the Earth, Heartbeat
Gaia Consort, The Green, Vitus Dance
Amanda Komisarek, Herbs for Life
Jenna Greene, Green man, Wild Earth Child
Robert Gass, The Circle is Cast, Ancient Mother
Emerald Rose, Merry Mayfolk, Bending Tradition
S. J. Tucker, Mama Dragon, Tales from the Road
Kenny Klein, Diana’s Moon, Ghosts of the Delta
Gypsy Nomads, Oh Gypsy, At the Carnival Eclectique
Damh the Bard, Land, Green and Grey, The Cauldron Born

PaganFM! Prayer list. Greg from Heartbeat, Ian from Telesma, Mary, Diane, Jay, Andrea and her children, Priscilla, Andy.

News

Sacred Paths Center, in St. Paul, MN, is closing. Sacred Paths was open for just over three years, and served the Minneapolis / St. Paul area – sometimes referred to in the community as Paganistan. Sacred Paths provided a great many classes and events for the community. In a letter written by the now-disbanded board of directors, it is clear that this type of community center is not only a welcome addition to the community, but something which many feel is necessary.

Cara Schulz of the Minnesota bureau of the Pagan Newswire Collective has written an excellent article discussing the closing of the center, which is both a cautionary and an instructive tale for anyone considering the creation of a Pagan – or for that matter any – non-profit community service organization.

Some of the problems with Sacred Paths included a lack of proper accounting, the mingling of organization, a store, and personal finances, and a lack of planning at the time the organization was founded.

Same Sex Marriage

Disclaimer – what follows is my honest opinion – consider this more commentary than news.

In North Carolina, voters have managed to insert a nasty piece of bigotry into the State Constitution. In short, they have enshrined in their constitution, a provision that not only defines marriage as between one man and one woman, but have also outlawed civil unions or any other recognition of a union between two people of the same sex.

On the heels of that, President Obama finally solidified a position saying that he supports marriage for all. While that is welcome to the LGBT community as a whole, some segments, notably the Log Cabin Republicans have managed to criticize him for that statement – proving, it seems that there is no satisfying some people. If you hate someone, you’ll hate whatever they do – even if it is to your own benefit.

When I first heard of the passage of this amendment, I was livid. When I recognized that only 25% of the voting public of North Carolina bothered to show up, I was acrimonious. What does the number 25% mean? It means that 75% of the voting population didn’t care enough to bother to show up and push a button or fill in a circle on a piece of paper.

The right is claiming an overwhelming victory. They are saying they won by something like a 61% – 39% margin. When we consider that only 25% of the people eligible to vote bothered to vote, and that only about 75% of the entire population (maybe less) is eligible at all, this means that about 11% of the population has now dictated to the rest of the population of North Carolina, who is, and who is not eligible to be married. All I can say is that if you support equality in North Carolina, and you didn’t vote, shame on you. Your vote could have certainly made a difference.

PaganFM! Almanac

Moon void of course data provided courtesy of www.drstandley.com
All times are in Eastern US time.

Today is May 10, 2012. It’s the 131^st day of the year. The Sun is currently in Taurus, and the waning moon is currently void. It will enter Aquarius on Friday morning at 6:21 am.

The moon reaches Last quarter at May 12 14:47

The moon will be void on Sunday, May 13 at 2:04 am, and enters Pisces at 1: 22 pm.

It will be void on Tuesday, May 15 at 11:50 am, and enters Aries at 11:33 pm.

And the moon will be void on Thursday, May 17 at 11:59 pm, and enters Taurus on Friday, May 18 at 12:10 pm.

 Practical Pagan

Tonight I want to tell you a story.

Once upon a time, there were two little boys. Let’s call them James and Tom. They grew up in the same neighborhood, but in two very different families.

James grew up in what we’d call a conservative family. They went to church every week, attended Bible Studies, and they had a flag-pole with an American flag in their front yard. They scrupulously followed our nation’s laws regarding the way the flag was to be treated. There were soldiers in their history, but these people thought they were serving America by the work they were doing. They were educated, and had high paying jobs, and good investments. They were certainly part of the American establishment, with a good income, and a good deal of money going to charities.

In a near-by house, was Tom’s family. While they didn’t have quite as much money as James’s family, they were able to afford a nice house in a nice neighborhood, thanks to an inheritance that was left his Mother when a wealthy aunt passed away. While they were somewhat comfortable, they were by no means care-free with finances. Tom’s family was different in other ways – where most of the neighborhood was Christian, Tom’s family were Pagan. They had a beautiful garden in the back yard that the family kept neatly groomed, and at various times in the year, the neighbors heard singing and drumming. For the most part though, the neighbors were a bit too polite to ask what was going on – most assumed that it was some sort of party.

As time passed though, Tom and James became friends. They went to the same schools, and if people didn’t know better, they would almost assume that James and Tom were brothers. When they were young, they attended Cub Scouts together, and Tom’s mother was the scout leader. As they got older, they went into the Boy Scouts, pretty much keeping up with each other.

It was while they were in High School, that the pair noticed they had something else in common. While the other boys were interested in girls, that didn’t seem to occupy their minds. They tried dating girls off and on, but it never seemed to work out for them.

James had heard the many sermons and admonitions against homosexuality, and he was absolutely terrified of being gay. But inwardly, a great fear was developing within him. And a depression. Tom could see the struggle in his friend, but wasn’t really sure how to help.

Finally, James broke the subject to his pastor. He explained that he wasn’t sure that he really liked girls. He wasn’t exactly attracted to men at the moment, but he felt different than the other boys. His pastor asked him if he had any friends who he considered manly, and immediately James thought of Tom. He told his pastor that yes, he had a friend he considered manly, and the pastor said that perhaps he should spend more time with that friend – to learn how to be a man. At once, James felt a lump in his throat, but didn’t know what to do. He almost felt trapped.

Senior year in High School passed pretty much uneventfully, and the two young men went to college at the local university. While they weren’t roommates, they managed to stay in touch, and were together frequently. James was majoring in political science, and Tom, a bit more of a geek, took up engineering. James started staying away from church a bit, and was feeling a bit guilty, but he always envied Tom, who always seemed to be at peace with the world. One day, he asked Tom about it.

Tom explained that in his religion, he was always close to Deity. He didn’t have to go to church every week – the Earth, Tom said, was a temple, the body of the Divine. James really liked that idea, and asked if Tom could explain more. So Tom invited James to a local group that met every few weeks. James began to open up, and Tom said that he had always seen there was a spirit that loved the God and the Goddess within James.

Tom began to explain that the rules of Christianity were not the same as the rules of the God and the Goddess. He explained that most Christians didn’t even really understand the words of their own God – pointing out that where the Bible said “For a man to lie with a man as with a Woman is an abomination”, could have had many other meanings. Tom wasn’t trying to cause doubt in James, but merely pointed out that things are not always as clear as we mere humans like to presume they are. Rather than ask James to take everything he said on faith, Tom pointed James to resources that James could trust. Bible dictionaries and concordances, speeches given by real Christian leaders. James began to wonder about the lessons he’d been taught as a child.

As they entered their junior year in college, James was drawing further and further from the church of his upbringing, and his parents were becoming a bit more than troubled. They went to their pastor who expressed his own concern about James. He told James’s parents how James had once come to him, and had said that he had a friend who was quite manly. James’s parents expressed to the pastor about the drumming and such that came from the back yard of Tom’s house. The pastor suggested that perhaps there was a spirit of evil in that house. He wanted to get to the bottom of it.

And so, one night, James’s parents invited Tom’s parents to their house to talk with them and with the pastor about their concerns for James. As Tom and James were such good friends, anything that concerned James certainly mattered to Tom’s parents. But when they arrived, the pastor was immediately on the offensive. He asked about the drumming and celebrations, and when Tom’s parents explained their faith, the pastor was certain that this family was the cause of James’s woe. Tom’s parents knew they would get nowhere with this man, and left.

With all the accusations against Tom and Tom’s family, James finally felt completely disconnected with his own family. His relationship with Tom grew to the point where he finally expressed that he might be sexually attracted to Tom. Tom said “You know, I’ve been waiting for you for a long time.” James mentioned that he felt so close – that it seemed they had known each other for a great many years. Tom recounted to James one of the mysteries of the Goddess, saying “And he taught her all his mysteries, and gave her the necklace which is the circle of rebirth. And she taught him her mystery of the sacred cup which is the cauldron of rebirth.

They loved, and were one; for there be three great mysteries in the life of mankind, and magic controls them all. To fulfill love, you must return again at the same time and at the same place as the loved ones; and you must meet, and know, and remember, and love them again.

But to be reborn, you must die, and be made ready for a new body. And to die, you must be born; and without love, you may not be born.” He said to James, we have known each other before, and our spirits have been one. I have known you, and you have known me, and that is why we have been so familiar.

That night, James and Tom embraced and became one, once again.

When they had finally graduated college, James and Tom set up house together. James worked, much to the dismay of his family, for the Democratic party, and Tom was hired by an engineering firm. They lived in a state where same-sex marriage was illegal, but Tom and James were handfasted at a celebration with a local Pagan group. Tom’s family was proud, but James’s family did not attend.

James tried to maintain contact with his family, but his parents laid down the law – James could visit, but Tom was not welcome.

James and Tom both gained success in their respective fields, and were able to purchase a home of their own. Not being married, the contractual arrangements were rather difficult, but they wanted to be a family. Eventually, they were able to adopt two beautiful children, whom they loved and doted upon. Both sets of parents had to admit that these were beautiful and well-adjusted children, though James’s parents would never visit if Tom were home.

One morning, James, on awaking was feeling particularly tired, sore and weak. He mentioned this to Tom, and Tom suggested that James visit the local clinic – Tom would stay home with the kids. About an hour later, Tom received a call from James saying that the doctor felt a strange mass beneath his arm. Tom nearly collapsed, but knew that he’d have to be strong for James.

Over the next year or so, James underwent many treatments for cancer, and though Tom was often in the same room as James’s parents, they never spoke. James’s parents seemed to think that the cancer was some sort of punishment for the relationship James had with Tom. A short while later, James lost the ability to speak, and it was then that Tom learned the true extent of hatred that James’s parents were able to express.

As soon as James was no longer able to speak, his parents took it upon themselves to prohibit Tom’s visits. They asserted power of attorney on James’ behalf and hired a lawyer to try to wrest control of the children. James, all the time, was failing. Fortunately for Tom, the contracts they had set up were fairly secure, and he wouldn’t lose his home, but the struggle for the children was another story. No longer able to visit his partner, the custody of his children in jeopardy, James sought the help of an attorney of his own. He also sought out the help of his Pagan community who immediately began a prayer circle.

One day, the community realized that James’s room at the hospital had an outside window facing a nearby park. Wanting to send James some energy, they gathered at that park for a drum circle and focused all their intent on James’s well-being, and on healing for his family. Something in the chants, something in the drums, reached James, and that healing energy began to reach him. Somehow his will began to assert itself, and a strength, a deep inner strength began to return to his will. And James finally began to breath on his own again.

It took another full year for James to recover his strength. The treatments had taken their toll, but the treatment by his parents had wounded him much more deeply. But finally, James and Tom were ready to meet the situation head-on. As James’s parents had done decades earlier, James and Tom invited James’s parents to their home. Reluctantly they agreed.

For the most part, Tom sat silently, and James did the speaking. He asked his parents if they had been truly willing to let him die without seeing Tom. At first they said that they weren’t afraid that James was in immediate danger of dying. So James asked again. “Well, we never really thought of it that way” was the response. James asked his mother, “If you were dying, and I had the power to refuse Dad, and did so, how would you feel?”

James asked his parents if Tom had ever said or done anything threatening, and his parents began to realize that every boundary they had set with Tom had been scrupulously held. Aside from not being Christian, and for being gay, they could not find fault with Tom.

Finally, James asked if his parents would be willing to sit with him and examine exactly what the Bible had to say about homosexuality – not in English, but in the original languages. His parents agreed, on condition that their pastor be permitted to attend such a meeting. Tom and James would bring someone along as well.

The meeting set, the pastor and the Pagan apologist did most of the talking. James’s parents listened intently, and heard every argument that the pastor had made in all his sermons against homosexuality. But on each and every point, it seemed this Pagan apologist had a very well-thought-out response. James’s parents were crestfallen when the pastor was unable to give better responses that “when the Bible says a man shall not lie with a man as with a woman, we know what that means”. When asked why the Hebrew words said something entirely different, “well, we know what they meant” did not do much to fulfill James’s parents expectations with their pastor.

James’s parents went home after that meeting, and promised to call for another visit soon. They kept that promise, and met with James and Tom. They expressed regret for years of faulty thinking, and said they would be looking for another church that spoke the words of Christ. They were adamant that they were Christian, but they had found that some Christians place far more stock in the law than in the person of Christ.

Tom and James said that James’s parents were always welcome in their home, and were glad that James’s parents had come to see that Christ was much bigger than the book that speaks about Him.

Now obviously, this is only a story. Not every story ends as well as this one; in fact, we might say that few actually do. We hold on, most of us, to our beliefs quite firmly – we don’t want to be persuaded that the views we’ve held since childhood, are wrong. In most families, our religious beliefs have been held not only since childhood, but for generations.

But this particular story ended the way it did to illustrate a point. You’ll notice that Tom held fast to what he believed, but never attacked James’s parents. Most parents who would behave as James’s did, sincerely do so out of Love. In this story, Tom recognized that James’s parents truly loved him. But their paradigm, their beliefs, blinded them and infected that love. Tom knew that a fight would not purge that infection, but would only reinforce it.

I’ve mentioned on this program before, hearing Bishop Gene Robinson, the Episcopal Bishop of New Hampshire, speak on this subject. Actually, Jasper and I were there together. Bishop Robinson was the first openly Gay Episcopal bishop, and his elevation to that post resulted in a very major schism in that church. Anyway, Bishop Robinson was at the Portsmouth Music Hall, speaking after the film Inlaws and Outlaws was shown. Someone asked him how he handled hecklers. Bishop Robinson’s response was beautiful and concise. He said that WHAT he said mattered little – but that what truly mattered was how he treated the person who was engaging him. What mattered was that he treated such people with respect. And that’s what we are all called to do as children of the Gods – to recognize the human dignity in each and every person, and to treat them as if they are God or Goddess.

Sometimes that is really, REALLY hard. When we are met with hatred, when people treat us with disdain or disgust simply because we are Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered, Pagan, Muslim, Black, Native American – whatever. Our inborn tribal instincts cause us to treat those we perceive as “other”, as a threat. And when one of “ours” aligns with those we perceive as “other”, it can cause us a great deal of dismay. Think of such words as traitor or turncoat.

When we are acting on pure instinct, we are harmful, hurtful, dangerous creatures.

But we can have hope. When we are the people who are perceived as “other”, we have one tool which is important to use. We can love. We can treat others, as the Christian Bible says, with dignity and with respect. While it’s difficult to repay harm with kindness, to mete out love for disdain, that is simply the best and most powerful tool we have.

It’s also important to remember that treating someone with gentleness and with respect does not mean that we do not hold people accountable for their actions. It does not mean that we will not fight for what is right. What it does mean is that we will strive and struggle, but that we will do the least harm possible to everyone concerned. In this story, Tom engaged an attorney to look out for his family. He didn’t sit idly by and simply let James’s parents run roughshod over everything. Tom and James might have done better if they had secured medical power of attorney prior to James becoming ill. But as young people we don’t often think of that.

In the end, what’s the lesson here? There are actually quite a few lessons in this story. We can rest assured that we will be who we are meant to be. We can honor those we love without forcing them, but rather, by showing them the same kindness and respect that we’d like to be shown. We can protect those we love without purposefully hurting others. We can know which fights are necessary, which are not, and which are futile. And most importantly, we can know that things will, in the end, turn out as they are supposed to – whether we understand the larger lessons yet, or not.

Sacred Paths Community Center, St. Paul

Sacred Paths Center, in St. Paul, MN, is closing. Sacred Paths was open for just over three years, and served the Minneapolis / St. Paul area – sometimes referred to in the community as Paganistan. Sacred Paths provided a great many classes and events for the community. In a letter written by the now-disbanded board of directors, it is clear that this type of community center is not only a welcome addition to the community, but something which many feel is necessary.

Cara Schulz of the Minnesota bureau of the Pagan Newswire Collective has written an excellent article discussing the closing of the center, which is both a cautionary and an instructive tale for anyone considering the creation of a Pagan – or for that matter any – non-profit community service organization.

Some of the problems with Sacred Paths included a lack of proper accounting, the mingling of organization, a store, and personal finances, and a lack of planning at the time the organization was founded.

PaganFM! Almanac
Moon Void of Course Data provided by www.drstandley.com

Today is May 3, 2012. It’s the 124^th day of the year. The waxing moon is currently in Libra

The moon will be void on Friday, May 4 at 5:35 pm, and will enter Scorpio on Saturday, May 5 at 3:05 am.

A full moon on May 6 19:19 Universal time, promises to be the biggest and brightest of the year. This is due to the fact that the moon at perigee, and only some 356953 km (221,800 miles) from Earth – the closest the moon will approach Earth this year.

The moon will be void on Sunday, May 6 at 4:55 pm, and will enter Sagittarius at 2:25 am.

May 7 marks the death of Sir James George Frazer, the anthropologist and author of The Golden Bough. Frazer was born on January 1, 1854 in Glasgow. The Golden Bough is a monumental work, examining the similarities of human belief, which progressed through the stages of primitive magic, religion, and finally science.

Frazer collected data from many other researchers and pulled together anthropological evidence from many cultures to advance his thesis. The first edition of the Golden Bough was two volumes; the third, twelve volumes. A single-volume, abridged edition (comprising a very dense 800+ pages) was published in 1922, and again in 1950. In 1978, Doubleday published an illustrated, and much more abridged edition.

Frazer’s work was criticized by many – from Christians who felt attacked, to others from academia who had problems with his methods. Despite whatever criticisms have been leveled, the Golden Bough remains one of the most referenced works by those who seek to understand how our forebears worshiped. His descriptions of ancient rituals have been used by many who wish to reconstruct ancient religions, or to design new rituals today.

The moon will be void on Tuesday, May 8 at 5:04 pm, and will enter Capricorn at 2:58 am.

It will be void on Thursday, May 10 at 7:48 pm, and will enter Aquarius at 6:21 am.

Practical Pagan

I suspect that most of us have just celebrated Beltane – though I know some groups are still waiting to do so, and I thought I’d share my thoughts on this holiday. This week, my teacher, Jasper, another friend, and I celebrated Beltaine at my teacher’s house. She has a beautiful yard that is really conducive to this sort of celebration. It was cold, wet, raining, and not the sort of day that many people would consider a “great day” for celebrating anything out of doors. Despite the hardships, it was still a beautiful day, and will be one Beltaine that I’ll remember.

So, what are we celebrating at Beltaine? If you have eyes, and a nose, you’ll recognize that after our rather strange winter, the Earth is alive. The trees are budding, many are flowering. The marvelous scent of sweet aromatic flowers is their way of reproducing. We humans use perfumes to scent our bodies – to attract mates. Where do you think we got this idea?

The creatures that spent the winter beneath the ground, asleep, are now awake. If you have a female cat that hasn’t been spayed, if you spend time out in the forest, if you spend time watching the birds, it is completely clear to you that now is the time when sexual activity is going on in nature. The cycle of life begins anew.

Our ancestors knew this as well. Sex at this time of year results in babies born around Imbolc – which is one reason that milk is a symbol of Imbolc.

Our world has become quite afraid of sex – especially here in the United States, with our rather Puritanical and Catholic roots. I think that part of this stems from a Christian fear of Paganism. As Pagans, we have always revered the sex-act. It is important and sacred to us. While Christians claim to revere and hold sacred the sex act, they don’t celebrate it; rather, they seem to fear it – to wish to control it.

It’s probably worth noting at this point that Christians “Fear” their god as well. While their definition of “fear” isn’t the same as we might expect from “afraid”, but rather connotes something somewhat between “fear” and “respect”, there is that element of being afraid.

If you’re a fan of old-time-radio, you might remember a program called “Inner Sanctum”. This was a live radio program that featured tales of terror and mystery. Entering the “Inner Sanctum”, one heard the creaking door that suggested we were leaving the mundane and entering this mysterious and dangerous place.

This, to me, typifies the Christian idea of a conflation of holiness and something fearful. The words “Inner Sanctum” refer to an inner holy place. We may have heard of the Sanctum Sanctorum – the Holy of Holies, the most sacred place in the Hebrew Temple. It was a place that ordinary people could not enter.

In Judeo-Christian philosophy, (excepting Protestant sects) man may not approach God. We see this even with Abraham, who had to remove his sandals, and dared not look upon the face of God. Sex was the act in which humankind participated in the work of God, in the creative process, and thus was a very sacred act. And, as it turns out, that which is sacred, in that thinking, is something to be feared.

Pagans also view sex as sacred. But we look at it a bit different than Christians. In Paganism, our Gods and Goddesses are not separate from us – they are with us, always. We are unable to be separate from them as they are part of us.

In fact, everything in Paganism is sacred – from the Earth, to rocks, trees, the air, our rivers, our selves, and each other. But in Paganism, respect does not carry the sense of fear. Where in Christianity, if a thing is holy, it must not be used for that which is profane, for the most part, Pagans don’t have that same distinction. If everything is sacred, how can anything be profane?

Admittedly, some of Christian thought has carried over into Neo-Paganism. You’ll see many Wiccans who will refuse to use their Athames for anything ordinary. On the other hand, you’ll see kitchen-witches using their cauldron for a stew today, and a ceremony tomorrow. We don’t have hard and fast rules that span all of Paganism.

And so, once again, we come to sex. The Christian idea of sex has pervaded much of society – to the point where American television is actually more prude than it was 40 years ago. While some suggest that it is almost a sex-filled orgy, and for some cable channels it might seem so, network television seems to have gone backwards. We might not be back to the days of husband and wife sleeping in separate beds, but I recall advertisements for Love’s Baby Soft in the 1970′s that were quite suggestive. Today, even that relatively tame ad would not appear on network TV.

One “Million” Moms – that crazy group spurred on by the so-called American “Family” Association is once again calling on a boycott of J. C. Penney because a lesbian couple is featured in their catalog. We seemingly can’t get away from the prudishness of Christian culture.

There is a humorous line from Australia that relates how grateful Australia is that they were populated by criminals, and America was populated by Puritans. There is something to be said for that.

But we also have to admit that when we try to get away from the Christian idea of sex, we do sometimes go too far. The free love of the 60′s and 70′s gave way to a great deal of promiscuity, which was partly responsible for the epidemic of AIDS in the 80′s.

We do need to recognize that powerful gifts do demand respect. What we need is to find that line between fear and abandon. Sex is pleasurable, and powerful. It is certainly something that I think that if more Christians experienced more often, they might just lighten up a bit. And while it is meant to be enjoyed, as mature Pagans, we can learn how to respect those things we enjoy. We enjoy the wilderness, and we respect it by not trashing it. That’s how we enjoy our environment, how we treat our friends, that’s how we thoughtfully experience our lives.

We recognize that our world isn’t here to be conquered, but to be cooperated with. Likewise, where Judeo-Christian culture speaks of loves “conquered”, Pagans look upon our lovers and see Goddess and God, and we know that we do not conquer Deity; we can cooperate, or flee.

It is a Christian attitude that we will have but one love in our lives. They say “What God has joined, let no man strike asunder”. And for many years, divorce was illegal, unless granted by the Church in an annulment. Children born out of wedlock were illegitimate, bastards. Churches controlled marriage, and by extension, sex. Priests would listen to confessions and mete out punishment to those who found enjoyment in the sex act; for the “sin” of experiencing sex without the express reason of procreation.

Sex is sacred, and thus the Christian church was afraid of it. That it is pleasurable made it even more frightening.

As Pagans, we have an opportunity to teach a world that things that are sacred don’t have to be seen as frightening. We can open up the doors to the Sanctum Sanctorum and say “come on in”. We don’t need a priestly class to mediate between us and deity. We recognize that the Sanctum Sanctorum is within each of us – we all have access to that place. The Holy of Holies is inside us. The Goddess spoke: “If that which thou seekest, thou findest not within thee, thou wilt never find it without.” We can’t find anywhere else. For as long as we look outwardly, we’ll never be able to discover that sacred place.

Somewhere between the free love of the 1960′s and 1970′s, and the stoicism of conservative Christianity, is the place where love and sex is open, available, safe and sacred. And we discover that place when we discover our own maturity.

When we are able to truly know our selves, we are truly able to offer our selves as gifts to another being. We can recognize the Divine in our selves, the Divine in another, and join, as Goddess and God, as one. And that is the great rite. That is us, as human beings, participating in the work of Goddess and God. And we can know that the Gods can be as playful and as adventuresome as we as humans. One of our most ancient sacred texts is the Kama Sutra, which is also, most likely, the fist book about sex.

As the Goddess says, all acts of love and pleasure are my sacraments. Love and pleasure do not come with fear.

As Pagans, we’ve probably heard many admonitions for safety – especially around Beltaine. I agree wholeheartedly. If you are feeling pressured, don’t hang around. There are, unfortunately, some people who use Paganism just as a tool to attract sexual partners. This isn’t Paganism – this is simply sick behavior.

Paganism is much more tolerant of diversity in sexual practice than Christianity – we do have polyamorous relationships. We do allow for more sexual fluidity. And for an immature person, this can lead to a bit more confusion than a world which says no sex before marriage, that marriage is one man and one woman, and that once married, you can’t divorce. In Paganism, we have hand-fastings for a year and a day, and we permit many sorts of relationships.

But in the end, safety comes down to maturity. And hopefully, in our communities, we are beginning to understand what sexual maturity means. It means being responsible for your self. It means never giving into pressure to have sex – we always have the right to say “no”. If you don’t feel comfortable having sex with a person, you say NO. If they pressure you, then do what you can to leave.

As Pagans, we need to educate our daughters and our sons that while sex is good, no means no. (Mojo, in the Wigglian way’s 99^th episode mentioned the idea of games, where ‘no’ might be a part of the game, but that there is always a safe-word – but this is the exception.) And we, as a community, must be willing to stand behind and support those who are victims of sexual crimes. We need to let people know that we won’t tolerate those in our community who would victimize others.

For those of us who clergy, or leaders of Pagan churches, I’ll ask some questions – who do you permit to be leaders in your organization? Do you do background checks? How would you handle allegations of sexual misconduct? What systems do you have in place to protect your children and those who might be vulnerable? What sort of training do you have in place for clergy? Do you have lists of resources for folks who might come to you with tales of abuse or rape? If you are doing pastoral counseling, have you been trained to handle serious problems? Do you know when to refer someone to a person more knowledgeable or qualified?

I’m certainly not trying to ruin anyone’s Beltaine. The point of Beltaine is to experience our own sexuality, to be playful, to participate in the creative forces of the Earth we live on. But we do this responsibly. We can be respectful without giving into fear. We can be playful without taking unnecessary risks. In short, we can be mature.

How can you tell if a child is a witch? Helen has produced movies teaching people just that … are your crops failing, you might have a witch child around you. Do you have a young child who is sickly? They might be a witch. One young girl was branded a witch because she was smart – apparently, as a witch, she was stealing the brains of other children. Helen claims an ability to deliver such children, but in Africa, many such young ones are killed or exiled from their families and villages. Helen does not take responsibility for perpetuating the hatred of children, and the false ideas that a crying hungry child is probably a witch in need of exorcism, rather than a hungry child that needs food.

Nor is she cognizant of the fact that there are people who practice indigenous or Pagan religions, and that this does not mean that a person is possessed by her idea of the Devil.

In any case, Helen has canceled her U.S. Visit, claiming that she has received death threats from Stepping Stones Nigeria – an organization dedicated to protecting children from people like her.

I’m not sure what was the specific reason or event that tilted the scale, and frankly, it’s really none of my business. But Peter Dybing has retired from public life as a Pagan. Peter was involved in a good many things in the Pagan community. He was involved in recovery efforts in Haiti, and he was also the President of Officers of Avalon, and it was in that capacity that I spoke with him a couple of weeks ago.

In any case, we wish him well, and hope to see him around at the various festivals – as one of the rest of us. Good luck Peter, in this new phase of your life. Take time to enjoy it.

PaganFM! Almanac
Moon void of course data provided courtesy of drstandley.com/

Saturday, April 28, the moon will be void at 6:29 am. It will enter Leo at 5:51 pm.

On Monday, April 30, the moon will be void at 1:44 pm, and will enter Virgo at 12:19 am, on Tuesday, May 1.
May 1 is also Beltain in most circles, though some groups do celebrate it later. Or, if you’re in the Southern hemisphere, Samhain. Some people suggest that while Samhain is when the veil between the worlds is thin, that it is also thin at Beltaine. It does make sense that if part of the world is celebrating Samhain, the veil would not be thin simply for those celebrating this day.

On Wednesday, May 2, the moon will be void at 5:07 pm, and will enter Libra on Thursday, May 3.

Practical Pagan

Anger

Tonight I wanted to talk a little bit about anger. We’ve all felt it. We all understand it. And pretty much every one of us recognizes it as unpleasant. Some of us seem to go through life without getting angry – at least too often, while others of us seem to be in almost a constant rage. Most of us are somewhere in the middle.

But what is anger? Well, most of us recognize anger as an emotion. And emotions are mental states that incentivize us to act in some way or other. Romantic feelings might urge us to procreate – to have sex. Fear will tell us that we must either flee or confront. Anger can lead us to take revenge for a wrong done us. Love can lead us to care for another.

Psychologists trying to understand emotion classify emotions as either primary or secondary. As yet there is no standardized way of doing this. Some classify primary emotions as those we feel first, and secondary emotions as those we feel after the immediate stimulus has dissipated. Other researchers try to find the common components of emotions and classify the most basic of these as primary, and more complex emotions as secondary. Thus, if you’re looking at charts of primary and secondary emotions, anger may or may not be listed there.

Another way of defining primary emotions is the expressions we are able to recognize in each other. We all know the face we make when we taste something that disagrees with us. We all know the looks of surprise, and, yes, anger. We’re able, looking at a person’s face, to determine if they are angry, sad, surprised or disgusted by something.

Primary emotions are vital for survival – they spur us to take action, and they helped us, as clans to protect our groups, and to reinforce the social constructs that allowed us to live and work together.

But most of us recognize that we don’t live in tribal situations anymore – and some of us would do away with such primitive things as emotions – we’d try to live using the laws of logic and reason. Life would be better, some of us presume, if we could all live like Mr. Spock from Star Trek. Fortunately though, it doesn’t take a great deal of time or insight to evaluate such a proposition and see it as false. Emotion is just as necessary today as it was centuries or aeons ago. We can look to the strength that fear might give us – we all have heard of smallish people lifting a car off of someone who was trapped. We recognize that feelings of guilt might spur us to do the right thing when we had considered otherwise. Emotions are important – necessary. The rational response to emotion is not to be rid of them, but instead, to put them to good use.

And so we come to anger as an emotion. We feel anger when we have been wronged, or when someone we care for has been harmed. Anger urges us into confrontation – but, unchecked, it can urge us into confrontations that might have tragic or unintended results.

I tend to look at anger as two distinctly different things – or rather, I think that there are two different sorts of anger. If we look at the ways of describing emotions that I mentioned a few moments ago, one of them suggested that the first thing we feel is a primary emotion – and what we feel later on is a secondary emotion. Using those descriptions, anger can be both. If we, or someone we love is wronged, anger is the primary emotion. It urges us to do something to rectify the situation. On the other hand, we can entertain that anger for quite some time. We can hold a grudge, we can plot, we can become vengeful or resentful.

In the book Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, published by Alcoholics Anonymous, there is a paragraph in Step 10 that reads “It is a spiritual axiom that every time we are disturbed, no matter what the cause, there is something wrong with us. If somebody hurts us and we are sore, we are in the wrong also. But are there no exceptions to this rule? What about “justifiable” anger? If somebody cheats us, aren’t we entitled to be mad? Can’t we be properly angry with self-righteous folk? For us of A.A. these are dangerous exceptions. We have found that justified anger ought to be left to those better qualified to handle it.”

I’m going to pause briefly here to let you know that it really doesn’t matter if you’re an alcoholic, an addict, or anything else – or not – the early writings of Alcoholics Anonymous are some really good books for ANYONE – and this part of Step 10 is just one example. If you see the book Alcoholics Anonymous, or Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions around, perhaps at a used book store, pick them up and give them a look – there are some serious gems of wisdom between the covers.

Anyway, “It is a spiritual axiom that every time we are disturbed, no matter what the cause, there is something wrong with us.” Most people don’t think like that. Generally, we think, if we’re upset, someone has made us so. We recognize righteous indignation. Our legal system has provisions for “fighting words”. If you say the wrong thing, and you get punched, in some places, you, not the person punching, was in the wrong. So how can it be that if we are upset, there is something wrong with us?

The writer continued “What about “justifiable” anger? If somebody cheats us, aren’t we entitled to be mad? Can’t we be properly angry with self-righteous folk?” That really makes a lot of sense. There are times, aren’t there, when anger is justifiable? What would the “warrior spirit” be without anger to urge that person on?

When I read this text for the first time, I think I was in the same position as most of us. I was thinking “what a crock”. I thought the author of that book was suggesting that we all become pacifists or something. But I took some time and I gave it thought. And when I did so, utilizing the idea that anger can be both a primary AND a secondary emotion, I began to realize the wisdom in that particular passage.

Anger, as a primary emotion, is something we will not rid ourselves of. As human beings, as part of the species Homo Sapiens, that sort of anger, the response to a somehow threatening situation, is simply a part of us – something that we can no more separate from our beings than our Limbic System (which just so happens to be believed to be the location in our brains that is responsible for our emotions).

So, if anger is a primary emotion, why is it suggested that there might be something wrong in feeling anger? Well, I don’t think that is what the author of Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions was getting at. Anger, as a primary emotion is inevitable. But anger as a secondary emotion is quite a different matter. As a primary emotion, anger affords us the resources to deal with a difficult situation. Once some aspect of danger has passed, that sort of anger is no longer necessary – we don’t require the hightened levels of adrenaline, we don’t need elevated heart rate or respiration. Once the danger has subsided, we have the opportunity to use reason to help deal with whatever situation might be presenting itself.

Anger, if we continue to entertain it, can have measurable and negative physiological effects. A 1996 article by the American Heart Association entitled Vital Exhaustion, Anger Expression, and Pituitary and Adrenocortical Hormones: Implications for the Insulin Resistance Syndrome, spoke specifically to this. For those who are wondering, Vital Exhaustion is pretty much what some people today used to call a “nervous breakdown”.

Anger just takes a tremendous amount of energy. It wipes us out – and if we don’t let go of it, it can wear us out completely, and cause some fairly significant damage in the process. So the question is – what do we do about it? How can we let go of anger?

Another word for hanging on to anger is “resentment”. Resentment is what happens when we hang on to something because we’re angry at another person . Rather than being the anger that helps us resolve an immediate crisis situation, resentment festers like an infected wound. Long after the initial injury, it is an infection, secreting poison into us. And that anger and that resentment will not disappear until we have let it go.

We need to remember that after the initial injury or insult, the only person who is maintaining that anger is us. If someone insulted me, and I’m angrily awaiting an apology, it’s me, keeping me angry. If someone stole something from me, and I’m still angry, that is me. The writer of Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions was absolutely correct – if I am disturbed, something is wrong with me. The ONLY tool to remedy this is forgiveness.

This doesn’t mean that we are all to be doormats, to be blithely taken advantage of. It doesn’t mean that I have to let others do whatever they want to me. It is perfectly fine to defend myself. If someone attacks me, I can retaliate. What this does mean is that we can’t entertain the poisonous, festering resentment that, in the long run, only serves to make us bitter.

Forgiveness is also a term that many people misunderstand. We’ve heard “forgive and forget for so many years, that we presume they are synonymous. They aren’t. And if you’re paying attention, you’ll notice that I never said that we are to forget.

Forgiveness is really nothing more than no longer permitting whatever it was that happened, to rule our lives. If someone harmed me years ago, and I’m still upset by it, I have a problem. That other person probably forgot what it was that they did to upset me – so if I’m still hanging on to it, I’m the only one being harmed.

Glamour magazine published an article in 1997 called “30 Things Every Woman Should Have and Should Know by the Time She’s 30.” It was so well-received, that it’s now a book. Number 10 on the list of things every woman should know is “That your childhood may not have been perfect, but it’s over.” Likewise, our pasts are over – nothing we can do now will change what has happened. But we do have total control over where we go from here.

On May 13, 1981, when I was in the Air Force, I was qualifying on the ’45 at Pease Air Force Base. I remember this well because it was the day that the Catholic Pope, John Paul II was shot. After being shot, and after his attempted assassin was jailed, the Pope met with that man, Mehmet Ali Ağca, and forgave him. He did not hold that man unaccountable, and Ağca served a total of nineteen years for his crime, only being released on January 18, 2010. But what Pope John Paul did was to free himself of any negativity and resentment by forgiving Ağca.

That is how we let go of anger, and how we live our lives fully and freely, despite the fact that we’ve been wounded by someone in our past. Sometimes it takes practice. Sometimes a feeling of resentment might slip in there.

In meditation, we learn how to accept and release thoughts that disturb our meditation. We can do the same thing with our resentments. We might be going along fine, and all of a sudden, a painful memory creeps in, and we feel that old anger rising up. But just as we do in meditation, we can accept the fact that we got angry, forgive the person who harmed us, and let that anger go. Really, it serves us no purpose – why do we wish to go around carrying all sorts of baggage that we simply don’t need?

Musical Selections
Heather Alexander, Familiar’s Promise, Merlin’s Descendants
Alexander James Adams, Familiar’s Promise, A Familiar Promise
Alexander James Adams and Heather Alexander, Sword and Staff, WinterTide
Alexander James Adams, Warlock’s Oath, Unseelie Self
Gaia Consort, Peace Now, Evolve
Amanda Komisarek, Herbs for Life
MaterDea, Between the Temple’s Walls
Laura Powers, Beyond the Pale, Beyond the Pale

News
Last Thursday, 5 police officers were shot in Greenland NH. Police Chief Michael Maloney did not survive his injuries. Some 3000 people were in attendance at his funeral at Winnacunnet High School in Hampton today. U. S. Attorney General Eric Holder was one of the speakers and spoke of the words used to describe Chief Maloney – throughout the country- a true Patriot, a Cop’s Cop, a working Police Chief, a role model for other police officers.

On April 12, Maloney and other officers were executing a search warrant at 517 Post Road in Greenland, a small New Hampshire town of about 3500 residents. The suspects opened fire on the police, and when some were hit, Chief Maloney stayed with his team rather than retreating, and was subsequently shot and killed. Cullen Mutrie and Brittany Tibbets were the suspects, and Mutrie was known to be violent. At about 2:30 AM, the next morning, a police remotely operated robot entered the home and found Mutrie and Tibbets dead in an apparent murder-suicide.

The four other officers who were wounded are now recovering.

All of this speaks to the dangers involved in law-enforcement work. As a Pagan community, we are fortunate to have an organization that supports our first responders. Officers of Avalon is a community of Pagan law enforcement, fire-fighters, military and emergency medical personnel. Peter Dybing, the President of Officers of Avalon spoke to some of the difficulties that first responders in a situation such as this recent incident might face. Often, the stress from extreme situations can lead to stress-related reactions if they are not dealt with soon. Peter said that a critical incident stress debriefing – a conversation with another individual who has faced similar situations is the best tool to prevent stressful situations from resulting in reactions that can escalate in the future.

When asked how the community can better support their first responders. Peter mentioned that while these professions can be somewhat testosterone driven, and while some people who enter these professions can do so because of their own ego or power trips, that most people who enter these careers do so out of a sincere desire to help others. As civilians, we can stop looking at the police, state troopers and other first responders as “other”, and recognize that they are working on our behalf – they are part of our community.

As a means of furthering that sense of community, Officers of Avalon maintains a Facebook page, and while it is a group for which approval must be requested, anyone who requests to join will be approved.

PaganFM! Almanac

Moon void of course data provided courtesy of www.drstandley.com

All times are in Eastern, US time.

We are currently approaching a New Moon, and the moon is in Aries.

The moon will be void on Friday, April 20 at 6:02 pm, Saturday morning it is a New Moon at 2:18 AM, and will enter Taurus at 6:10 am.

On Monday, April 23, the moon is void at 6:59 am, and enters Gemini at 7:12 pm. It was on this day in 2007 that the Wiccan Pentacle was officially added to the VA approved list of emblems for tomb-stones.

On Wednesday, April 25, the moon will be void at 7:43 pm and enters Cancer on Thursday, April 26 at 7:41 am.

Practical Pagan

Being a successful person.

Truth, honesty, humility, compassion, trustworthiness, smart, witty, kind …we have so many words that describe what we think is good in people. And for the most part, we try to be these things in our own lives. We like to be thought well of. We like it when those we care about think well of us as well. And sometimes we let others down. Sometimes we let ourselves down. Certainly neither of these situations is actually fun.

But the thing is that most of us want more of these qualities that we describe as ‘good’, and we want to be rid of those qualities that we consider bad – such things as selfishness, greed, intolerance, jealousy, defeatism, and so many other things that seem to interfere with the life we may want to lead.

We often look to people who are achieving great things in their lives, and we wonder just what it is that is different for them. We may attribute it to good fortune – perhaps someone had wealthy parents, and we believe that the wealth of those parents set these people up to succeed. We look to our own failures and suggest that perhaps because our parents were not as wealthy, we were doomed to fail.

We might see people with great artistic or scientific abilities and think that they succeed because they have some innate ability that we do not possess.

Others we look upon may be skillful orators, great musicians or writers – and we suggest that their success was solely based on those abilities. We fail, we content our selves to think, because we do not possess in sufficient quantity, some character, trait or skill that these other people do.

This past week, on someone’s Facebook page, I happened upon a video of South Park that came from the second season and was titled Gnomes. In this video, gnomes steal underpants. There is a scene where the gnomes are talking about the plan – phase 1 is collecting underpants. Phase 3 is profit. Unfortunately, nobody knows what phase 2 is.

I think that this describes the problem that most of us face when trying to be successful in anything – be it spiritual, financial, in our love interests. We manage to gather the raw materials, and we know what we want in the end, but we don’t know how to get from what we have to where we want to be.

In the South Park episode, whenever a gnome was asked “what’s phase 2?” there was dead silence. And that’s the way many of us are. We might say “I want to be a successful writer”, but when asked “what have you tried to have published”, we hear “well, I started writing three books”. So, we’ve collected underpants, but haven’t done anything with them.

Or we might suggest that we want to record a record album. How much music have we written? Who have we recruited for this band? How much have we practiced? Or do we simply have more underpants?

Maybe our goals are seemingly simpler – maybe we just want to be a person respected for our faithfulness. And so we take on a number of jobs in our community. Maybe we join the town council, or we take on a volunteer position at our library. Just signing on to do these things is only part of the process – if there is no follow-through, nothing will happen.

When we want to be successful, by whatever definition we might measure that success, we need much more than simple desire. We need more than phases 1 and 3.

I seem to recall a saying that I believe comes from Albert Einstein, though I’m not 100% certain where I read it. But the basis of the argument was that to become proficient at anything, we need really only spend about 15 minutes each and every day doing that thing. We might not become a virtuoso that way, but we can certainly become proficient. The point being that persistence is what matters – having a goal be a constant one, something that we are working on rather than something fleeting and transitory.

Einstein also said “If I had an hour to solve a problem I’d spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and 5 minutes thinking about solutions.” In this quote we realize that one of our biggest problems is not solutions, but rather understanding a problem completely. If we fully understand a problem, the solution will become apparent.

These are things that we can apply in our lives. One of the problems that we have as Pagans is this idea that magic will bring us whatever we want. There is a Christian musical from 1969′s called “Tell it Like it Is.” One of the scenes has someone speaking of God as a vending machine – we sort of put in a coin, press a button, and we get what we want. Many of us who are Pagans look to deity or magic in much the same way. The problem is that that’s just not the way things work.

There is nothing in our universe that operates like a vending machine except a vending machine. If we want change in our lives, it’s not going to happen by simply wishing for it. If we have a problem with lying or cheating, simply wishing to be different isn’t going to change us. If we are poor and wish to be wealthy, wishing won’t make that happen. If we want to become proficient at music or magic or writing or anything else, envying someone who is proficient, and wishing we were, isn’t going to make that happen. We can’t simply collect underpants and expect some divine spark to turn them into something valuable.

When we want change in our lives, we have to set something in motion. Newton said that a body at rest will tend to stay at rest. Likewise, a body in motion will tend to stay in motion. When we want any condition to change, we must apply the suitable force to effect that change. And the very real truth is this: a wish is not a force.

Some people suggest that a prayer or an act of magic are necessarily ineffective because they are not actions which involve any force. Some who are atheists believe this to be true – they point to prayers or magick and suggest that “miracles” or magick are not real simply because there is no cause-effect relationship to be found or proved. The saying goes that extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence. Well, I have a few questions of my own.

1: What sort of evidence is necessary to prove that prayer or magick are effective? Some might suggest that repeated results under controlled conditions are the proper proof. They would require proof that every time a magical act was performed, the result would be the same, and they would require proof that no other force was the actual cause of the results achieved.

My response would then be to suggest that medical science is a hoax. There is no single treatment offered by medicine that always works. Many people undergoing medical treatments do not recover, and many people who do recover would recover without medical intervention. By this measure, medicine is not a valid science.

2: Does the fact that we do not yet have the means to measure a thing mean that such a thing does not exist? What is time? Where is an electron when it’s between energy levels? How fast does gravity travel? There are many things that we cannot measure directly – but that does not mean they don’t exist.

Now right here, I could bring up magnetism and ask what magnetism really is. As a matter of fact, I think I will. For centuries, magnetism baffled science. The rational realized that it wasn’t magic, but they couldn’t explain it. To many, without advanced degrees in physics or mathematics, magnetism is still a mystery. In fact, it wasn’t until Einstein’s theory of Special Relativity that it began to be understood deeply. Now, we’ll look at electrostatic fields and lines of charge and relativistic terms as charges move at the speed of light, and we’ll understand magnetism in a new way. But the fact that it took so long to understand magnetism well only shows that there are many things that we may not yet understand, but as our understanding grows, and as we are able to grasp more, what once seemed to be magic is simply the science of the real, not yet understood.

Years ago, the idea of “ether” was dismissed. The theory of “ether” was some substance that we could not measure, by which fields of energy were able to move. Well, ether is gone, but now it’s been replaced with dark matter. How long will that last?

When we look to science to answer questions, we need to know that science doesn’t have all the answers. And just because it cannot answer a question, or just because a thing cannot be proved (yet) with scientific means, does NOT mean that it’s folly to believe it.

And now we come back to the idea of self, and change, and growing from that which is undesirable in our lives, and attaining that which we want.

The first principle is that everything requires force to change. This applies in physics as well as magic.

The second principle is that we need to accept that change. Force applied against an immovable object results in no work. The more that object is open to be moved, the more work that can be done. If we wish to change, we must be open to, and accepting of change.

If we wish to become a writer, and we have not yet begun to write, we must do so. We can’t simply buy a computer or word processor or even notepads and pencils – that’s simply collecting underpants. We need to START WRITING.

If we want to become successful at anything, we need to work in that direction.

And so where does the magic come in? If we want to start writing, and we do so, what is the point of a spell, or a prayer?

That’s a really good question. Magic might be considered somewhat of a fuel for reality. It doesn’t always have a direct effect, but it can certainly have an effect. Here is an example of a spell that I did years ago. I was working on a program for a particular event. At one point, I lost the paperwork for that program – the advertisements and records of payment. I looked everywhere – and having just left a bus, I thought they might be on the bus. I called the transit company and they searched the bus – no such luck.

And so I called the woman I was doing the work for, and went about the task of trying to recreate these ads, but it was sure to be a good deal of work. The next afternoon I called the bus company again – by this time, the bus had been cleaned twice. No such luck.

At that point I did a spell to retrieve the lost documents. And the very next day, I got a call from the company that the documents had been found.

What is the measurable force? There is none. I don’t know what happened. But I do know that effects such as this are seen by countless people who have, and who do use magick.

So when we’re looking for a job, it’s perfectly appropriate to do a spell. But the work has to be going on in the background as well for it to be successful. If we’re not at least trying to move toward our goal, we are the immovable object, and no amount of force is going to cause us to change course. If we want a job, or rather, if we want a job to get us, and we’re not willing to go and get it, no spell is going to make that happen. We need to be willing to allow the forces we set in motion to move us. We can’t expect the world to move beneath us. If we want a new setting, we must move our bodies.

What is it that successful people have in common? They aren’t stuck, they aren’t immobile. They are willing to make the changes that are necessary to allow success to happen. Do you want to be healthy? Be open to be moved into health, and then do what it takes to improve your health. Do you want to be a writer, be open to be moved to write – and then write. Do you want to be more kind, honest, compassionate – whatever it is that you want, be open to it. And then do your spells, say your prayers, whatever it is that you do, and take steps in that direction. If you want to be more compassionate, when you’ve done your spells, then put yourself in positions to feel compassion, and see what happens. Do you want a new job? Do your spells or say your prayers – remembering that the effort that you put into these is important as well – and then start looking for that job. It will come about.

What’s the key? I think it’s inertia. If we’re willing to be moved, we will be moved. But if we are not, we are that immovable object, and nothing will happen.

If we want anything, we must be willing to be moved.

“Tribe nbsp;/strongp